Mason Jars
by fairylightsandlonelynights
Summary: Hannibal lies awake at night and muses about the mechanics of the human heart and what Will Graham's looks like. Oneshot. Rated T because, hey, he's a cannibal.


In the vast silence of 3:00 A.M, Hannibal Lecter lies awake.

There is a flutter beneath his eyelids that he cannot quite explain as he listens to the cadence beneath his breast. His heartbeat flees from him, a betrayal of his own flawless indifference that tries to convince him he was wrong in his acts of the past few months. But he shall not be swayed by the hoofbeats his heart leaves bruised upon the insides of his ribcage.

He shall not give in to it.

He has no idea what causes such rapid beats to pound beneath his chest, but then again the heart is often prone to flights of fancy.

The heart... such a delicious creature, best marinated, or seared, not left to the wilds of its own desires and fancies and to run amok and interfere with important things, such as plans and dinner and sleep.

Sleep is important, one of the fundamentals of human life, behind heat and food and drink of course, which is why Hannibal is so concerned by his current state of 'awake' when it is still too far into the small hours to consider rising. He is a psychiatrist, so he knows the only way to prevent this from recurring and becoming habit is by facing whatever problem has awakened him head on.

He places the blame on his fractured heart and it's vibrato throat in the cleaver of his chest.

His heart is used to loss, though he does not believe he can consider killing Abigail and having Will Graham arrested qualify as loss. He does not care for either of them that way. Abigail was a rook, checked before her time. Will is a bishop, eyes heart-ward, who was eliminated ...impaled by a...

In the night, Hannibal smiles. He was about to think of himself as a shrike. But he is no shrike is foolish, leaves its prey impaled on thorns where a wiley mongoose or badger could steal it. He himself hides his prey, or devours it instantly. No... He is a heron, peering over the heads of the other birds as they flit and fret. A heron stands alone, overlooked, watching and at the perfect moment…

Plucks...

Yes, Hannibal believes if he is anything in this metaphor of fowl, he is a heron. But his heartbeat is a hummingbird wingbeat and he cannot for the life of him understand why.

He believes the problem may be Will Graham.

Of late, Hannibal cannot help but wonder how Will Graham is sleeping. It is a strange thought, he is aware, but he often finds himself thinking strange things about people and the walks of life they call their own. In a cell that reeks of dankness and neglect, Hannibal himself would not do well. He would manage, with a sore back perhaps, but he enjoys his luxuries too much to enjoy giving them up. But Will is a man of outdoors, of fish and stream and filet. Hannibal assumes he has slept on things much firmer than the prison beds.

This particular night, upon being woken with his heart in his throat with no apparent reason, Hannibal finds himself thinking of Will Graham with something of a personal curiousity.

Is Will alone with his thoughts tonight, or listening to the schizophrenic serial rapist down the hall rip the mucus from the lining of his throat during another onset of delusional rants?

Perhaps Will lies awake, heart a clockwork jumble of perfect ticks and beats, thinking of Hannibal and the revenge (In his own name and in Abigail's) he has no doubt he shall exact, even from his indisposed position in his prison of prescription and plague.

Hannibals wonders what Will's heartbeat is like, at this very second.

What pace does it keep? Does it fly tonight? Does it sound like a metronome in the dark?

Hannibal has been fascinated, for a while at least, at the concept of Will Graham's heart.

If the man's mind is a catacomb-esque tomb of people and places and split-lipped faces, what could his heart be like?

In his bed, beneath the Egyptian cotton sheets, Hannibal believes Will Graham's heart looks like a mason jar. Transparent.

Hannibal turns on his side, his hand folding into the cold the lurks beneath his pillow.

This is a handsome room, when well lit. For now the darkness sweeps across the mahogany doors of the walk-in closet, a small bookshelf reserved for favorite works of fiction, a few souvenirs (Gifts really, kept to maintain appearances.) and an atlas. Hannibal detests the idea of a television in the bedroom, believing that every room has a given function. There is not a pen in his bedroom, for those belong in the study. Not a dish in the study for those are for the kitchen.

He is not a very personal man either, home relatively bare of any items one could not find elsewhere. Will Graham noticed this, upon one of his first visits and said that were he not aquainted (Even on a proffesional level.) Will Graham would mistake Hannibal for a man hiding his true self.

Ah, Will Graham.

Hannibal finds himself thinking of Will's heart again, musingly, though not in the way he had been a few moments ago. Hannibal thinks of braising Will's see-through heart in wine, onion flowers simmering in olive oil and a soft chantilli cream blown into curls to lighten such a thick entreé. He thinks of feeding it to Jack Crawford, but decides that he has been far too charitable with his food. If he were to devour Will, he would keep it to himself, a quiet, opera lulled evening of fine wine and the deftness of a clever tongue.

The coldness beneath his pillow fades replaced by the slowly pulsing tendrils of warmth of his own creation. His heartrate slowed 10 minutes ago, but Hannibal does not fall asleep until much later, thinking of flame and sorbet and chantilli cream.

When he does fall asleep, he dreams that his house is infested with fireflies and he has not a single jar to keep them in.


End file.
